Invisible Darkness
by Parda
Summary: In 1995, Elena Duran was torturing and killing Hunters and Watchers to avenge the murder of her friend Maria. In 2008, the widow of one of those Watchers seeks her own revenge. -by Parda and Vi
1. Chapter 1

**Invisible Darkness**

**by Vi and Parda (December 2001)  
**

**

* * *

June 23, 2008****  
Monastery Beach**  
**Carmel, California

* * *

**

_/!Carajo! Fire! I'm on fire!/_

_/The pain is absolute-every burning atom of my body is stretched to the limit, like on the rack. I always want to crawl into a hole and die, die quickly, and never come back, because I can't ever stand this pain. I can still see the light, burning my eyes even through tightly-closed lids, night turned into day, darkness into brilliance./_

_/Then the invasion, the violation, as Gavin Stuart-the damned drunken Scot who followed me from the hospital and just would not take no for an answer-fills me, looking for a fight. I scream during the unique aloneness-cum-fusion that is the Quickening./_

_/But I won! I'm alive! His life, my life-it doesn't matter. Light and life and laughter fill me, drown me, bubble forth from me, a fountain more brilliant than the lightning of before. Surely, there's enough life in me, and enough energy and enough power, to light a small city. Will the corpses in the churchyard cemetery across the street suddenly burst forth from their graves and scream their own joy at being alive?/_

Elena Duran's legs folded completely, limp and useless, her strong legs which had kept her dancing close enough to cut Gavin Stuart, dancing-mostly-out of the reach of his sharp blade, her legs which had kept her upright during the Quickening, until now. She sank farther, right into the ground, pummeled again and again by his energy, by his entity, by those brilliant bolts of searing rage.

Elena lay face down on the cold sand of Monastery Beach, reduced to a whimpering mass of bruised and bleeding flesh and bone as his psyche sliced through her mind, just as his sword had sliced through her body. This second battle was always harder. She was so tired, and she hurt so much. She couldn't even cry out with the pain; she just lay there squirming, a beetle pinned to a board.

And he wanted his revenge. Damn it, no, Gavin Stuart wanted to live! He was reaching into her brain, holding her heart in his hand, squeezing her very existence out and trying to replace it with his own. He wanted _her_.

No, not again! Elena could see them, all those she had killed during her four hundred years of fighting and living and dying. A crowd of men and women gibbered at her feet, their hands clutching at her, clawing at her, their long-boned fingers groping blindly into her soul. Robert Trent was there, darkly smiling, for he had hacked out a home inside her, taken her over, bent her to his will. And Stuart there, on the top of the pile, still strong, and if even one of the others touched her, Stuart would have a handhold, and he'd be able to pull himself up, slither up all along her own body until he was face to face with her. And then ...

No. Elena closed her eyes and concentrated on ... on being herself. On pushing him and the others out of her head, on grinding her teeth together, as though that would make any difference. Stuart was a man of strong character. Damn him! Why couldn't she be the one who culled the herd and got only the easy ones? Why did she always get challenged by strong-willed, expert fencers?

_/Maybe _I_ look like an easy kill./_

Sweat broke out all over her body, and her breathing hadn't slowed down yet. No! No, it would _not_ happen again, as it had with Robert Trent. It wouldn't happen again because she had won! Stuart hadn't been strong enough with the sword, and he wasn't strong enough now.

_/I am Mariaelena Conchita Duran y Agramonte, and I've beaten you, pendejo, and you can't have me./_

* * *

Time flows invisibly in darkness.

Elena had fainted, but she didn't know when. Her face lay in a hollow in the ground, and she could taste the salty tang of sea air, feel the cool caress of a heavy summer fog on her back. Sand grated under her cheek, but it was still much better than cold concrete or the harsh gravel of pavement. She opened her eyes and lifted her head, then rolled over onto her back, closing up that gash in her ribs, easing the hurt in her right knee, the light taking the place of the pain and of the hollow feeling, and leaving her full of herself. Herself, not him. And not the others.

_/Just myself, thank you very much./_

_/You're very welcome./_

She giggled, and it turned into a laugh. She was alive, and the headless Mr. Gavin Stuart a few meters away was not. Fuck him. Her mind drifted for a moment, for there was, in fact, someone else she'd like to fuck. Duncan MacLeod was supposed to be entertaining their guests in her ocean-side home. But Amanda, Methos, Richie, and Connor and his current lady-love Shannon (a redhead of ample proportions) could find something else to do: play Scrabble or poker or something. Maybe more music. There was still plenty of food. They'd all come into town a few days ago to hear Joe Dawson play in the Monterey Blues Festival yesterday, and afterwards Amanda and Methos had displayed unexpected musical talent, Amanda being quite the chanteuse while Methos accompanied her on the guitar. They'd obviously made music together before, probably in a variety of ways.

Elena was ready to make some music with Duncan. She didn't think Duncan would be worried about her just yet; it wasn't even midnight yet, and she'd only been gone a few hours. Her housekeeper, Marta Fernandez, had collapsed earlier that night in the caretakers' apartment at Elena's house, giving Arturo, Marta's husband of thirty-seven years, quite a shock. Elena had followed the ambulance to make sure Marta would be well-taken care of.

**

* * *

Earlier that night**

Arturo's hand was bony and cold in Elena's when she squeezed it and said, "Remember, your salary continues and your jobs are secure, both of you, whenever you're ready to come back."

"You are very generous, Elena, as you always have been," Marta said softly from her hospital bed, and Arturo nodded vigorously, his once-black mustache salt and pepper now. Elena kissed Marta on the cheek and bade the couple goodnight, then quickly walked out of the hospital. All hospitals smelled the same, even this one with its lovely paintings on the walls and its ornamental fish pond in the lobby near the gift shop. The elegant trappings couldn't hide the fact that hospitals were places where mortals went to die.

Two weeks ago, in a hospital in Argentina, Elena had leaned over another, older woman, Carmela Onioco, and kissed her cheek for the last time. Carmela had been the housekeeper - house manager, really - of Elena's estancia in Argentina, and Carmela had also been one of her best friends - one of the few mortals who knew Elena's secret. "I was at her mother's bedside when Carmela was born eighty years ago, Duncan," Elena had told Duncan when he called later that day. "Carmela's mother died at childbirth, and I held the newborn inside my shirt for a few hours, giving her my warmth while they scrambled to find a nursemaid for her. I've never forgotten that, and I won't forget her."

"Nor should you," Duncan had said. "Do you want me to come down there to be with you for the funeral?"

"No. No, I'll be fine. Thank you."

"Still coming to California on the eighteenth?"

"Duncan, I'm not in the mood for that, not now."

"Carmela would want you to go," Duncan had urged her, and Elena knew he was right. "You've got tickets for the Blues Festival," Duncan had continued with his reasons, "and you've already invited a houseful of people. Joe Dawson has gotten better with age, and you'll enjoy it, you know."

And Duncan had been right again. Elena had enjoyed the three-day festival, a lot. And she did enjoy having people who knew and appreciated each other in her home, the light and laughter and love.

Outside the hospital, Elena stood on the steps, breathing deeply of the cool evening air, catching hints of sweet jasmine and the sharper scent of pine. Wisps of fog wreathed the dark branches, and the long summer day was fading into twilight. Marta would recover, the doctors had said. It was hypertension, easily controlled with medication. She would be fine.

Of course, someday, Marta would die.

Elena took another breath, then headed for her Mercedes in the visitor section of the parking lot. She'd left the top down, and the seats were moist with the evening fog. As she opened the car door she sensed the Immortal. Elena shrugged and slipped inside the car. "Not tonight, dear," she called out and then muttered to herself, "I have a headache and I'm depressed as hell."

The other Immortal's presence faded when she pulled out of the parking lot, but she didn't relax until she was down the hill and past the town of Carmel, past the traffic lights and traffic jams. She drove down the two-lane highway, ignoring the dramatic sunset over the ocean off to her right, and she stopped at the Carmelite Monastery to pray.

Unfortunately, that Immortal, obnoxious and insistent, was waiting for her when she came off Holy Ground, and so she sighed and crossed the highway on foot to fight him on the windswept seashore, hidden from view of passing cars by sand dunes and the gathering darkness. Then she took his head.

Now that Gavin Stuart was dead, Elena wanted to go home. If Duncan had started to fret, she could put him right at ease. Or put him right in bed. Elena did a pushup to get to a sitting position, then stood, feeling her strength coursing back. She picked up her sword and her coat, then trudged through the sand back to the highway, where she paused to look both ways for cars. People drove like maniacs on this stretch of road, and the darkness was nearly complete, this far from town. The moon wouldn't be up for another hour or so.

No cars were coming, but what the hell was that? A noise, or just a bad feeling? Or paranoia? Her Watcher, the blond-haired man with the glasses? Or her imagination? No. Elena never ignored feelings like these, and she didn't think she was just being silly. Adrenaline started pumping as she gripped the handle of her sword and looked around sharply, listening, staring off into the night, her one eye straining to see ...

She heard nothing. But she saw it, that flash of light streaking toward her before the darkness took her again, before the bullets slammed into her chest and through her, shattering her ribs. She actually felt her heart tremble and stop, so that she died again, by the sea this time, close to a convent and to a cemetery full of somber corpses, not so far from an already-beheaded man.

* * *

Elena revived, but there was no sand against her cheek this time, no smell of the sea. A cold metal chair, cold shudders through her body ... cold, so cold, and she couldn't move, couldn't move at all! She was tied down, strapped down, tight metal bands at her waist and ankles and wrists, and oh my God, NO! Not him! Not this. Not again!

She started to scream, but her chest hurt; Bethel must have shot her or stabbed her, and she couldn't get the words out. Gasping, trying to scream-but she knew it wouldn't help. It never helped. He never listened, never stopped. Bethel had her; he'd trapped her again and strapped her to that cold metal chair in his basement, his torture basement, her torture chair ...

"I'm going to break you."

_Madre de Dios, NO! _ He was right there, whispering in her ear, and he was going to break her, she knew it. He was going to break her again, he was going to hurt her, he was going to break her bones and fuck her and burn her and rape her and cut her and fuck her again and again, GodohGod no!

Her chest started to heal, but she continued to thrash and struggle in fear and agony, knowing it was hopeless. Knowing she was hopeless. She knew what would happen, what he'd do to her, now that he'd caught her again. Not again! Now that she could talk, she screamed out, _"!No, os lo pido, tened piedad, no por favor, os lo suplico, no! No, no me quemeis, noooo!"_

"What toy shall we use today, Elena?"

That voice again, close by her ear, amused, cold, vicious. She started begging now, whimpering, not even trying to escape anymore. _ "!No! !No, Bethel, por el amor de Dios, no! !Matame de una vez, os lo suplico!_ Just kill me, please!" she screamed impotently.

The empty space in her eye socket throbbed with remembered agony as she pleaded, alone and naked in the cold and dark. "_!No, por favor, no me quemeis, Bethel, no, matame!_" she finally whispered brokenly, knowing it wouldn't do any good, knowing she was completely helpless, knowing he would torture her anyway, no matter what she said or did.

"I'm going to turn out the lights, Elena, so you will know what being in total darkness is really like."

She knew. _!Carajo!_, she knew. In the dark, there is no time. In the dark, there is no hope. Only pain and fear, and despair-total blind despair.

Except ...

Except, it wasn't dark. Dim fluorescent bulbs flickered above, and a small high window glowed silver with moonlight. A window? There weren't any windows in Bethel's basement, so she couldn't be there. And ... and she wasn't in the metal chair, either. She was sitting on a cold, concrete floor, and that was duct tape on her wrists, not metal straps. She even had her clothes on. She wasn't naked.

But she also wasn't alone.

"Elena Duran." It was a woman's voice, a woman standing in front of her, calling her by name.

Not an Immortal, Elena felt no sensation of one of her kind nearby. She slowed her mind down a little, just a little, gasping now in relief instead of terror, because Bethel wasn't there. Bethel was dead, she remembered that now. It couldn't be Bethel, Bethel was dead. Completely and permanently. Elena had buried his head in her garden, nearly a dozen years ago. Connor had given the head to her as a present, and Bethel was dead.

_/No B-Bethel, no Bethel, my God! He's - no, he's dead. It's not him, and I'm not chained in his torture chamber, in his basement, and he can't hurt me anymore! Bethel is dead, !gracias a Dios!/_

She needed to catch her breath. Deep breathing, in through the nose, out through the nose. Calm. Pain. Peace. Breathing into the belly. But Bethel had worked with a mortal, she thought suddenly, and the cold panic and the cold sweats started again ... But no! It wasn't Bethel, it couldn't be Bethel. Bethel was dead. Dead.

But Elena was still frightened, because the woman knew Elena's name, and Elena was completely helpless at her feet. The healing was almost finished, and Elena clamped down on the moans of pain she was making - a little late, Elena! - and then she focused on the woman standing impassively before her. The moonlight from the tiny window slanted across her face, highlighting a snub nose and firm chin. Moonlight? Elena shook her head in confusion. For the moon to be that high, it had to be two, maybe three in the morning. Had this woman kept her dead for hours? Why?

Elena went back to evaluating her captor: mid-forties, slender, maybe a head shorter than Elena herself, tendrils of blonde hair escaping from a pony tail, a flowered print dress under a beige coat. But Elena didn't have her coat on anymore. She didn't have her sword, either; it was lying on the floor, next to the blonde's feet. The woman's blue eyes were searing into Elena with rage, just as Gavin Stuart's lightning had done.

Who the hell was she? Why was she so angry? Elena had never seen her before in her life, so why had the woman shot her? Elena looked around slowly, allowing the last remnants of panic and pain to leave her, taking those long abdominal breaths, assessing her situation. The walls of the building were horizontal wooden planks, the floor cold concrete, and a musty smell of animals and a moldy smell of old hay lingered in the air. The scattered pieces of a tractor or a car or something lay in the far corner. Maybe a barn or a storage shed of some kind? Elena was tied - strapped, actually, with duct tape - to some metal pipes that ran down the side of the wall. Had the woman dragged her in here? She didn't look strong enough.

What the hell was going on? The woman stood rigidly, jaw tensed, then carefully took a gun out of her coat pocket, holding it almost gingerly in her right hand. Angry, yes, but nervous - and scared. Definitely not a professional killer. That didn't make Elena feel a hell of a lot better. Elena shifted, trying to get comfortable, but her right elbow throbbed with a steady, sharp beat. Everything else had healed but that.

The woman began, "You-"

"Who are you?" Elena interrupted, staring right at her captor. It was as good a question as any, and Elena wanted to take the initiative, to get some answers and _some_ measure of control over the situation. Her right elbow was twisted funny and hurt like hell, probably dislocated, but Elena didn't think the woman knew or would care. Elena would just have to ignore the pain. She'd done that before. But it wasn't Bethel, thank God. Anyone, _anything_ was better than that.

But then the woman lifted the gun and pointed it at her, and Elena saw the hated circular tattoo on the woman's wrist. _/!Madre de Dios! A Hunter. Carajo, I'm fucked./_

"Who am I?" the woman repeated, her voice thin and trembling a bit with anger - or maybe with fear? "I am your worst nightmare, Elena Duran."

Elena almost burst into semi-hysterical laughter at the high campiness of it, the laugh you laugh after you've just escaped a horrible, terrible fate. She would have laughed, too, except she figured it would be a quick way to suicide. The woman would probably behead her anyway - that's what Hunters did - behead her with her own sword in a dirty shed, while Elena was helpless, strapped to metal pipes, not even fighting another Immortal. Duncan would never know, and her essence would be lost to murdering Hunters.

But ... the woman hadn't killed her yet. Did she want to gloat? Why? Elena took yet another cleansing breath and focused on the woman again. Maybe she could live through this after all. "I've had bad nightmares before," Elena answered as calmly as she could, trying not to move her elbow. "Some of them were even real." She started asking questions again. "What do you want from me? And why don't you tell me your name, since you know mine."

The gun didn't waver. "Pamela Johnson, not that it would mean anything to you."

"You are right; the name means nothing to me," Elena said, still controlled, but she was cursing to herself, because the use of a name meant a lot to her. It meant that Pamela Johnson was indeed going to kill her, otherwise she wouldn't have given Elena her name and risked having Elena find her later. _!Carajo!_ Elena forcibly calmed herself, let the peace take over her mind and spirit. Keep Pamela talking. The more she talked, the more chance Elena had of surviving. Maybe.

Of course, dying - even permanently - was not, Elena absolutely knew, the worst thing that could happen to her. "Who are you, Pamela Johnson?" she asked, again as calmly as possible.

Pamela's eyes flashed with renewed anger. "Who did you think I was before, when you were begging and pleading for your life? Bethel? He tortured you, didn't he? He got you sobbing, 'No, please don't hurt me!' My Spanish is rusty, but terror is the same in any language," Pamela said maliciously, staring down at Elena.

Oh, yeah. Elena had provided Pamela Johnson with quite a show, hadn't she? All unknowingly, Pamela had tapped into Elena's greatest fear. Perfect, just perfect, Elena thought in disgust, then reminded herself to keep cool. Never lose your temper in a duel. And this was definitely a duel, a duel to the death, and Elena's only weapon was words.

Elena tilted her head to one side, considering her best approach, her most effective attack. Pamela was obviously determined-obsessed-for some reason, and Elena had to find out why. But Elena decided to risk having Pamela erupt into more violence by trying to make the Watcher see she was out of her element. And first, Elena had to answer Pamela's question, to prove her own strength.

Casually, Elena said, "You reminded me of ... a situation I was in, with someone, but he's dead. He was an Immortal. You are not. He was a monster and a sadist, who refined the art of torture over decades of hurting people for fun, and he hurt me, a lot."

"You think I can't torture you?" Pamela challenged.

Elena smiled ruefully. Torture was definitely not something Pamela had done before, no matter how much she hated Immortals, even if she was a Hunter. There was bravado in Pamela's words and in her stance, in the gun she was gripping as a lifeline, or for protection. Elena pulled experimentally against her bonds, left hand only, and found that the claims of duct tape manufacturers were completely true. No escaping that way. However, the pipe her left hand was strapped to seemed loose, looser than the right. It came further away from the wall, and although Elena didn't dare turn her head to examine it, maybe she could pull it off in one hard yank, if she got her legs under her and if - a big if - Pamela didn't notice, and if Pamela let her guard down and didn't just shoot her the minute Elena tried anything.

It was still worth a try. She wrapped her hand around the pipe and carefully, surreptitiously, began to apply pressure against it, back and forth. Meanwhile, more words were called for. Elena countered with a question of her own. "Is that why you didn't take my head after you shot me? So you could torture me?"

Pamela started to answer, and Elena cut in again, with a mixture of conviction and dismissal, "No. Not you. Very few people are capable of deliberately inflicting pain on another person like that, and enjoying it." Elena's voice was cool and sure, all trace of her panic vanished. "You are not one of them, and you know it."

"You're right," Pamela agreed, sharp and brittle, the nervousness swallowed by anger once again. "But I also know that you _are_ a torturer and a murderer, Elena Duran, and that is why I am going to kill you."

Elena almost shrugged. She was used to being thought of as a monster by some mortals-especially Hunters. She could hardly deny being a murderer. As for being a torturer - dammit, she had done that too. So she did not even bother to deny the accusations. They were, after all, true. Elena moved on to the next phase of her attack: finding out why they were here. "I didn't think Hunters needed any reason to destroy us 'unnatural' creatures from hell,'" Elena goaded. She pulled some more at the pipe; it felt looser.

"Hunters?" Pamela repeated in bewilderment. "I don't know what you're talking about. This is about you, Duran, not any Hunters."

"No?" Elena asked skeptically. Hell, of course it was Hunters! she thought. Who else could it be? But ... if Pamela was not a Hunter - and yet why deny it, because, in Elena's experience Hunters were very proud of their killings - then why did Pamela want Elena dead? It must be personal; Elena had probably killed someone Pamela loved. But Elena had never "tortured" any Immortals, not like Bethel had tortured her. Played a bit with one or two of them during a fight, perhaps, cruelly, like a cat with a mouse, but that was just part of the Game. She shook her head to clear it of those memories, and then continued with the duel. Time to undermine the opposition's anger, time to make nice. "May I call you Pamela? Am I supposed to know you? Johnson?"

"My husband was Kevin Johnson," Pamela said, her voice still trembling, but with anger now. Definitely anger. Perhaps even rage.

So much for the idea of making "friends," Elena thought resignedly.

"You took him from our home in San Diego," Pamela continued, reciting a litany of vendetta. "You took him from our _bed_ in the middle of the night, on the seventeenth of February in 1995. You took my husband away, and you tied him to a chair. Then you broke his leg, hurt him, tortured him - I don't know for how long. And then you murdered him by running him through with your sword. This sword," she said, pointing to Elena's blade on the floor.

But it couldn't have been that sword, Elena thought in confusion. She had lost her original sword, the one her father had made for her. Bethel had broken it, like he'd broken her.

Pamela stepped closer and pointed the gun straight at Elena's forehead, right between the eyes. "Do you remember the name Johnson now?" Pamela demanded. "Do you remember _him_? Or do you even bother to remember who you kill?"

_/!Madre de Dios!/_ Elena suddenly had trouble catching her breath again, but it wasn't from being threatened with a gun or from any wound. All the calming techniques in the world wouldn't help her now, and there could be no escape, because Elena remembered that night. She remembered Kevin Johnson, too.

"What, no more comebacks, Senorita Know-it-all?" Pamela asked venomously, but before Elena could even begin to answer, Pamela demanded, "Why?" Tears of rage and wild grief gathered in the corners of her eyes, and her voice was hoarse with rage. "I want to know why, Duran."

And _that_ was why they were here. Elena forced herself to meet Pamela's eyes and took a deep breath, wondering how to begin, searching for words of explanation instead of words of attack, but Pamela spoke first, slowly, as if she were piecing a puzzle together, "For thirteen years, I never knew your name. I had no idea how to find you. But I recognized you tonight after you beheaded Gavin Stuart. And it was you, wasn't it, Duran? You were killing Watchers all up the West Coast, hunting us like you hunt each other-"

"Yes," Elena replied, wanting - needing - to explain. But there was more to it than that, dammit! "But you have it the wrong way around. It was you Watchers, your Hunters, who were killing Immortals. And anyone who got near us. Anyone that we cared about."

Pamela shook her head in denial then said, "All right, let's say these Hunters did exist. There were some stories about Hunters, yes, at one time, back in the early '90s," she admitted.

"What?" Elena interrupted incredulously, furious enough to forget all about choosing her words with care. "Are you ignorant or just plain stupid? They weren't just stories, and the Hunters sure the hell existed!" Elena cried out, heedless of the consequences, straining against her bonds, jerking her whole body towards Pamela so suddenly that the Watcher jumped back.

"They were real," Elena snarled, "and they shot at me, and later on they shot me and captured me. They stripped me, chained me, and broke my bones. With a sledgehammer! They tried to lure a friend of mine to his death by using me as bait. And worse - Hunters murdered my friend, a sweet girl who -"

"There was never any killing of Immortals or their 'friends' by any Watchers!" Pamela shouted back, furious in her own right, her blue eyes blazing. "If there had been any Hunters killing Immortals, we Watchers would have taken care of it ourselves, internally. And I would have known about it!"

Elena forced herself to back off, back down. "Well, the Watchers _didn't_ take care of it. And maybe they didn't tell you what was happening, Pamela. They didn't tell you who killed your husband, did they?" She watched Pamela's reaction, tried to gauge what the other woman was thinking, then added, "Hunters machine-gunned my friend Maria, who was pregnant, and obviously not an Immortal!"

"That's a lie," Pamela said, her hot rage gone into a much more dangerous cold certainty. The gun was once again pointed straight at Elena's head. Light glimmered off the barrel; the hole of the muzzle was a pit of empty black. "You're a liar, on top of everything else. I know you can't die this way, but I can hurt you. And if you lie again, I will shoot you."

For a long moment the two women stared at each other. Elena knew Pamela wasn't a torturer, but she'd already shot Elena several times, and Elena was damn sure Pamela could do it again. Elena didn't think it was a bluff, not this time. "Yes, you can hurt me, Pamela," she admitted, staying calm, staying cool, trying to take back control. "You even know how to kill me."

And _that_ didn't make it easy to stay cool, either. But Elena needed Pamela to understand. Elena summoned all of her sincerity and let her grief at Maria's death show through. "But I'm not lying. I didn't lie to you about your husband. I have not lied to you at all, Pamela Johnson. My pregnant friend Maria was hunted down and murdered by Hunters in Argentina on the eighth of November, 1993. It was after midnight, and they burst into my house. We tried to run, but they hunted us down like animals. They could see she was pregnant - eight months pregnant, Pamela! - but they shot her, and they tried really hard to shoot me. That is how I found out about Watchers, and that is why I hunted them."

"Watchers don't kill Immortals!" Pamela repeated, practically shouting, but Elena could tell that the volume was just Pamela's way of trying to convince herself. "And even if some did," Pamela added in a rush, "even if these Hunters really exist, my husband Kevin was not one of them. Didn't you find that out when you tortured him?"

Elena was out of words, defenseless now. It was true, she'd tortured him. It was true, she'd found out he wasn't a Hunter. It was true - and she'd killed him anyway. The silence stretched between them, until Elena finally admitted it, finally faced what she had done. "Yes."

Now Pamela was speechless. She opened and closed her mouth several times, so flabbergasted that she forgot about the automatic and lowered her hand to her side. "You knew -" She shook her head slowly, her breath catching in her throat, and when she finally spoke, her words came through choked tears, "You knew he was innocent, and you killed him anyway?"

Elena closed her eye, opened it again. She had to face this, dammit. She owed Pamela Johnson the damn truth, no excuses. It was a matter of honor. And right now, Elena needed all the honor she could get. "I knew he was innocent of being a Hunter," Elena said, but she couldn't help adding in her own defense, "You're a Watcher, but I didn't kill you. I promised him if he cooperated I wouldn't hurt his family, and I didn't-"

"Wouldn't hurt-?" Pamela interrupted. "Wouldn't hurt his family?" she repeated, furious and incredulous again. "Did you think that making his children orphans and his wife a widow wouldn't _hurt_ his family?"

To this Elena said nothing.

Pamela stood there, shaking her head, the whirling confusion in her mind reflected on her face. Then Pamela asked her original question all over again, a simple heartfelt plea, "Why him? Why my Kevin?"

Elena tried not to shrug. Because he was the next one in line. Because he was there. No good reason, but Pamela deserved an answer. "I wanted to kill them all, all the Watchers and all the Hunters," Elena explained. "I got his name from another Watcher."

"From Claire?" Pamela asked sharply. "Claire Carruthers?"

"I think so, yes," Elena answered after a moment, because there'd been so many, and she tried not to remember those days. "I was ... on a rampage, out for blood. I was out of control."

Pamela sucked air. "You were out of control," she echoed, unbelieving, and the flatness of those words stripped away the pretense of any possible excuse, any possible forgiveness. "You had an Immortal tantrum," Pamela continued. "And you murdered-" She stopped and closed her eyes for a moment, then went on in a light, controlled voice, "They adored their father, you know. Our two little girls. Caitlyn and Emily thought he was the most wonderful daddy ... But it's been thirteen years, and Emily was only seven. She barely remembers him now, and I-" Her voice broke, and she turned away, but not before Elena saw the bright tears dimming Pamela's eyes.

Elena's eyes filled in sympathy. And empathy. And sorrow. And not a little guilt. Oh, God. She remembered Kevin Johnson, and she remembered his children, too.

**

* * *

Continued in Part 2  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Invisible Darkness - Part 2_**

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* * *

**

**18 February 1995, 2:00 a.m.**  
**San Diego, California**

The front bedroom, lit by a Winnie-the-Pooh nitelite, has two sleeping children, both blondes. One child is about ten, the other younger, and Elena is acutely aware that they will wake up to tragedy. Only one of the couple, then. The man, not the woman. Elena will not leave these little girls orphans - she knows what that feels like.

In the back bedroom, Elena can see by the moonlight filtering in through the blinds that the man and woman lie intertwined in a large, four-poster bed. Across from it is an entertainment center, with a TV, stereo, CD player, and large speakers. The screensaver for their computer is little toasters with wings, flying through the air. "Looks like killing Immortals pays well," she mutters angrily to herself.

As Elena moves closer to the bed, the man shifts away from his wife, and Elena pulls out her sap and hits him once, expertly, behind the ear. He sags completely, and this is probably what alerts the wife.

"Kevin?" the wife asks sleepily, quickly pulling herself up on one arm, immediately looking up at Elena. There is a flash of wonderment in the female Watcher's eyes, and before she can even register fear, Elena reaches across the bed and knocks the woman out with a closed fist.

Elena doesn't need much time. This back bedroom looks onto the alley. Elena pulls the man towards the window, opens it, and drops him out feet first, then walks out the kitchen door again and joins him. He's landed on the pavement near her car, and his right leg is stuck out at a grotesque angle. She levers him into her trunk and drives to her prearranged site, an abandoned railway station.

When Kevin Johnson wakes up, Elena has already propped him up on a chair, his hands fastened behind him with plastic police handcuffs and his mouth gagged. Her sword is in her hand, and she sees in his frightened eyes his recognition of who she is.

"Good," she says. "What I want from you is the address of the next Hunter-or Watcher, if you prefer. And don't bother to tell me how you just watch and don't interfere. I've heard it all. And I don't want to hear it again. So …"

She watches his eyes follow the path of her blade as she taps the flat of it against his broken leg. He screams into his gag, a wailing moan. Elena says coldly, "You can see how it is. You are a strong young man, but you're hurt and caught. In fact, you're done. Give me the name of the next Hunter or Watcher in line, and I won't hurt you anymore."

She waits for the pain to recede, and for the reality of his situation to register in his eyes. After a moment he nods, and she removes the gag.

"You're going to kill me," he states, his voice quavering a little.

"Yes," she answers.

"My wife … she was there, in bed with me-"

"She's fine," Elena rushes to assure him. "I know she's one of you, but I also saw your children, your two little girls. For their sake," she adds seriously, "your wife lives."

"Then you won't-"

"No," Elena interrupts him again. She puts the sword down as she kneels in front of him and looks him in the eyes. The concrete floor feels rough right through her jeans. "Listen to me. Whatever happens between you and me stays here. No matter what you say or do, I will not hurt your family. You have my word." He nods in relief, but Elena continues, "But I will hurt you, Kevin. You have my word on that as well."

He is silent for a moment, then says, swallowing thickly, "I can't just betray my friends."

"Yes, you can, and you will. Now or later. The choice is yours." She stands, then lifts her sword again and swings the flat of it against his broken leg. His cry of pain fills the entire room. She only needs to do it once more before he nods, terrified, dull sweat covering his face, spent and resigned. He gives her a name, then a second name. And as soon as she gets what she wants, she nods and, without hesitation, runs him through the chest with her sword. Then she leaves him still tied to the chair, and she starts hunting again.

Oh, yes, Elena remembered Kevin Johnson. And his broken leg, his screams, his fear for his family. And his blood on her gloved hands. And his children, who had slept so peacefully, and then woken up to a world horribly changed. Elena blinked back her tears. _ / I wonder if it would help to ... What the hell would help? Not a fucking damn thing. I killed him and he didn't deserve it and-/_

"Did Kevin beg you to live? Did he ...?" Pamela drifted off, unable to continue.

"No," Elena said strongly. "He was brave. He was worried about you, and your children. That's all he cared about - all of you," she said, giving his widow this one true consolation. "And he wanted to keep his Watcher oath, too. But I didn't let him." Elena cleared her throat. "And now I can't bring him back. I'm sorry."

Pamela swung around, trails of tears shining on her cheeks. "You're sorry?" she repeated, grinding out the words. "You're _sorry_? What good is that?"

"What do you want from me, Pamela?" Elena asked, knowing she had nothing else to give.

Pamela picked up Elena's sword. "Justice."

Elena flattened herself against the pipes, an involuntary shrinking away from death. Oh, yes, she had more to give. Her life. Her head. _!Carajo!_ "Pamela-"

"Can you give me one reason why you don't deserve to die?" Pamela interrupted, her voice shaking but strong, lifting the gun in her right hand while she gripped the sword firmly in her left.

Elena ignored the gun and stared fixedly at the weapon she had killed so many with, the shimmering metal lovingly wiped clean of all the blood, the shining blade polished again and again, honed to a fine killing edge-just like herself. "No," Elena admitted, watching closely as Pamela blinked in surprise, maybe confusion. "I can't give you a reason why I don't deserve to die," Elena continued. "Not one. But I can give you a reason why you shouldn't kill me."

"I'm through listening to your lies," Pamela said, her finger tightening on the trigger.

"If you kill me, you become just like me!" Elena called out.

Pamela froze in confusion, then let go of the trigger, but didn't lower the gun. "I'll never be like _you_!" she denied. "I have every right to execute you! What you did was murder! This is justice."

Justice. Elena shook her head, remembering Duncan's words from years before: There is no justice - only mercy. Elena had found her weapon for this duel, and it was a weapon that could not kill. She leaned forward and spoke earnestly to Pamela, "That's exactly what I said to myself, when I killed the Watchers and the Hunters. I believed, in my heart, that it was justice, not revenge."

"No!" Pamela denied furiously, her voice trembling. "You murdered my husband, and maybe a dozen others. He was innocent. You are not innocent! You deserve to die!"

"You're right," Elena agreed, wishing she could keep her own voice from shaking. "I am not innocent. And ... I've killed many more than a dozen, and you're right; I deserve to die." She lowered her voice and insisted, "But _you_ are innocent, Pamela, and once you murder me in cold blood, you won't be innocent anymore."

Pamela shook her head incredulously, laughing, a strangled sound halfway between a gasp and a sob. "You lying bitch! You'd say anything to make me let you go!"

Elena shook her head, even as she admitted, "Yes, you're right, I would. But I'm still telling you the truth, Pamela. I haven't lied to you, not once. This isn't about me anymore. It's about you."

"Oh, yes, it's about _you_," Pamela spat. "This is all about you. Why do you think you're here?" Pamela's voice was harsh and grating, wounded and wounding, scraping the protective thick skin away and rasping down into the bone. "You're here, Elena Duran, because you deserve to die. You didn't kill those Watchers out of revenge for your friend, or because you were angry, or because you were frightened. You killed them because you wanted to. You killed them because you're a damned, cold-hearted, murdering bitch!"

A cold-hearted murdering bitch - it was true. Elena closed her eye again, trying to hide. She had been so desperate those days, so unhappy, so drunk. "I ..."

No. That didn't matter, not anymore. It never had. No excuses. She had deliberately murdered a dozen innocent men and women, for what? To keep them from killing others? For revenge? Hatred? Madness? Did it matter why? She'd still done it. In cold blood. Murderous. Deliberately.

"Yes," Elena whispered. "I am."

"No," the other woman commanded, smiling cruelly. "You said you'd tell me anything. Here's your chance. Look at me and say it. _Say_ it."

Elena took a shuddering breath of cold air, then lifted her head to look Pamela in the eye. "I, Mariaelena Conchita Duran y Agramonte, am a cold-blooded, black-hearted, murdering bitch." And the Hunters were cold-blooded, black-hearted murdering bastards. Elena hadn't started that particular war, dammit - she'd just continued it, and for good reasons.

Pamela shook her head in regretful disapproval. "I don't think you really believe it, Duran." The smile disappeared. "Not yet." She stepped closer and bent down, breathing in Elena's face-her spittle hit Elena's cheek, and her low, hate-filled voice went on. "I want you to remember what you did. Do you remember the mortals you caught and tied up and tortured and killed? Murdered? Do you remember running them through with your sword?"

Elena remembered. After breaking Joe Dawson's fingers, she'd gone to the dojo to talk to Duncan MacLeod. They'd fought first and died, both of them bleeding and wounded on the dojo floor, and when she'd revived, she'd broken down and cried. Duncan MacLeod's mercy, the pity and sorrow in his eyes, had undone her. Falling into a huddled, miserable ball on the wooden dojo floor, lying in her own life's blood, she'd wept uncontrollably for Maria and for Darius and Gordon, all murdered by Hunters. She'd wept for all the Mortals she'd killed throughout the centuries, and for the men and women she had hurt and executed in quiet rooms. She'd wept for the innocent ones, the ones like Kevin Johnson who hadn't deserved to die, and for the ones who had, and for all the ones who'd pleaded for their lives, who had begged her uselessly. She'd wept for her mother, an Indian slave who died when Elena was four, and for her father, beheaded by another Immortal, and she'd wept for herself, for the evil monster she had become. She hadn't been able to stop crying then. But now her eyes were dry, and she felt even worse.

"I want you to remember, you butcher!" Pamela snarled. "I want you to relive it! I have, every day for over thirteen years, while you've been going about your business, happily. Your business of killing more people." She laughed in cold scorn. "You say you were out of control, that you had reasons. You say you're sorry."

"I am," Elena whispered, and she was - oh, she was! - but there was nothing she could do.

"Remember," Pamela insisted. "Remember their faces. See them ..."

"No!" Elena didn't want to see, didn't want to remember. It was over and done with, a time in her life she'd put behind her over a decade ago. She was not that person anymore. Duncan had forgiven her, and she even managed to forgive herself, a little. There was nothing she could do anyway. It was over. She shook her head mutinously. No, no, no.

"_See_ them," Pamela hissed, her blue eyes ablaze, only centimeters from Elena's own. "I want you to remember Kevin, my husband, the father of my children. I want you to remember Claire. She was my best friend; we went to the academy together. I was maid of honor at her wedding."

Elena closed her eyes, trying to shut this all away. But Kevin Johnson was waiting for her, there in the darkness of her mind. His face pale with agony, screaming into his gag when Elena tapped his leg with the flat of her blade to send splintering shards of pain up through it, torturing him to make him scream. Claire was waiting for her, too, a tall woman with short red hair and a tattoo of a butterfly on her left calf, gagging in pain while the butterfly's blue wings were slowly painted red by drips of her blood.

"No," Elena whispered soundlessly, trying once again to breathe through the ache in her chest. But there had been no sword or bullets this time, only words. Pamela Johnson had ripped open Elena's ribs again and exposed her heart-a dark, black, damned heart. A heart that pumped not blood, but a thick black bile, a poisonous clinging blackness.

And Pamela was still with her, forcing her deeper, dragging her under, drowning her in blood and vomit and fear. "Do you know that we found out from the autopsy, when they cut her apart, that Claire was five weeks pregnant? Pregnant, just like your friend Maria."

"Oh, God no," Elena moaned. She didn't want to believe it. She wanted to believe that Pamela was lying to make her feel worse. But she knew Pamela wasn't lying, and Elena knew she had killed an unborn baby, too, just like the baby she and Maria had been going to raise. Elena shut her eye hard, biting her lips, then whispered brokenly, "I didn't … God help me, I didn't know."

"Neither did she. Her first baby - they'd been trying for years, and she would have made such a good mother. And you'll never understand what that's like, having a child in your body, being a mother, because you can never do it, not in five hundred years or in a thousand!" Pamela spit out. "You'll never understand what it's like to live in a family, to love, because you're not even human, not anymore."

"I am human," Elena whispered. "I do know." She knew about love, and all about loss. She'd lost two husbands, lovers and comrades, so many friends, and her baby, little Tanya, dying in her arms, gasping for breath ...

"No," Pamela contradicted flatly. "You're an Immortal, and you kill for the Game, and you think that changes all the rules. You think it gives you the right to kill anyone you want!"

Elena knew all about killing, too. Mortals, Immortals ... she'd killed so many, so damn many, and she wasn't even sure why anymore.

"You're not human," Pamela declared again, and Elena had to wonder if that were true. Pamela calmed herself with an effort then continued, "You tortured Claire until she gave you our name. You forced her to betray her best friends, and two weeks later you forced Kevin to betray someone else."

And Elena had betrayed Connor to Bethel, in just the same way. And Richie and Adam. Even Duncan. Everyone she loved, just to get Bethel to stop the pain.

"And now they're dead, because you killed them," Pamela accused. "You killed all of them. Remember," she insisted. "Remember what they said, how they pleaded with you ..."

Not that! Not that! Elena thrashed blindly against her bonds, trying to escape, from her captor, from her memories-from herself. But their words came clearly in the darkness. "My wife … she was there, in bed with me-," Kevin Johnson had said, not begging, not pleading, worried more about his family than for his own life.

Most of the others had begged. Claire had. "I don't know who Maria Alsonso is! Please! Oh, please let me go!"

So had Vicente Leon. "_Si, por favor, por el amor de Dios, si_, tell me what you want me to say, anything you want!" A tall thin man with the acne scars, in an empty hangar at a tiny deserted airport, while the desert wind rattled the enormous sliding doors, and he shrieked out the words. _"!Si, lo que Ud. quiera!"_

"I swear to God, I haven't done anything, please don't do this anymore." Maria Perez' voice, shrill and cracked with pain, in a filthy garage. "_!No me haga eso mas! por favor, Senorita, por favor_, please, please stop!"

And the others. All the other voices.  
Harry Mattingly: "Don't hurt me again! I can't break my oath!"  
Danny Donovan: "I'll tell you everything you want."  
Mark Weathers: "I never killed anyone in my life!"  
Alberto Fuentes: _"!Por favor! !No!"_

But Elena hadn't stopped, no matter what they'd said or did. No matter how they'd begged or pleaded. She'd killed them all.

Pamela's voice went on, relentless. "Remember who they were, their names ..."

Elena shuddered as the names came rolling over her, endlessly repeating, a ceaseless tide of death and pain: Joe Dawson, Harry Mattingly, Kevin Johnson, Claire Carruthers, Mark Weathers, Danny Donovan, the one who was just a kid, barely in his twenties-Mark Harrod, Olivia Sanchez, Alberto Fuentes, Vicente Leon, Maria Perez-a grandmother- Ernesto Moreno, Joe Dawson, Harry Mattingly, Kevin Johnson, Claire Carruthers ...

Elena ceased struggling and wailed, long and low. There could be no escape, ever. She was damned. She had deliberately tortured helpless, innocent mortal men and women, then murdered them. She had murdered fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, even an unborn baby. She had left behind grieving children, lonely spouses, desperate families, many damaged beyond repair. And she had done it over and over again. Twelve times, to be exact.

"Remember," Kevin Johnson's widow commanded one last time, then pulled away and left Elena alone, alone with nothing but her memories-alone with herself.

And she was nothing but darkness, to the depths of her damned forgotten soul.

After Bethel had finished with her, Elena had thought she was nothing. "You're a worthless, stupid mongrel bitch, and Don Alvaro never loved you," Bethel had said to her. "How could he? You were never worthy of his love! The people in your estancia are afraid of you, and justly so. The MacLeods don't care about you. You're an evil, murdering whore. You're worth nothing now, and you were never useful to anyone!"

But Elena wasn't nothing. She was worse than nothing. Much worse. _"!Dios mio, perdoname!"_ she sobbed. Taking long, deep, despairing breaths, she sat numbly on the cold concrete floor, blinking slowly, trying to focus and seeing only a grey haze, trying to listen and hearing only a dim roaring in her ears. She was deaf and dumb and blind. She had no more words, and no more weapons, and she knew she was going to lose this duel, because she knew she deserved to die.

Pamela returned, her gun still in her right hand, Elena's sword in her left.

"I - I'm sorry," Elena whispered uselessly, offering the only thing she could. She was exactly the kind of monster the Hunters wanted to destroy, and she knew she hadn't changed in the last dozen years. She'd probably do it all over again. She couldn't change anything. She couldn't bring them back; she couldn't save them now. And she couldn't save herself. Elena looked into the dark hole of the barrel of the gun, the emptiness, the death, and whispered, "I'm damned," only now realizing the full horror of those words.

Pamela Johnson ignored the apology she had dredged up from the black and stinking depths of Elena's soul, and once again prepared to kill.

Elena looked into Pamela's blue eyes, the blank uncaring eyes of an executioner, and saw the darkness in her, too. "Pamela ...," Elena began, hoping to save at least one person, "please, don't -"

"'Don't'?" Pamela repeated, shouting, as the ragged edges of her self-control gave way. "'Please don't'? How the hell do you get off- How many of them said that to you? How many screamed those same words?"

All of them.

"How many did you listen to?"

Not a one. But that didn't matter, not here, not now. Elena didn't matter, not any more, but Pamela did. "Pamela," Elena said again, stronger this time, "Don't do this. You don't want to become a killer. Believe me, I know. I have nightmares ... you have no idea -"

"I have some idea," Pamela said, softly now. "I dream about you, you know," she said hopelessly. Then she stiffened again, the hatred and anger returning and bringing a crafty look to her eyes. "I don't have to kill you myself. I could get another Immortal, let him know where you are."

Elena nodded. "And he does your killing for you. Do you think that will absolve you from my murder? You'll be just as guilty, Pamela. It will be the same as if you beheaded me yourself. The same." She leaned forward again, pulling painfully against her bonds and said, sadly and evenly, "The same cold-blooded murdering bitch as I am, Pamela. The same."

"No!" the other woman screamed, high and desperate, and in a sudden wild movement, she shot Elena in the leg, the bullet tearing into the thigh and glancing off the bone.

"Aaaahhh! Aaaahh!" Elena ground her teeth together, taking deep, shuddering breaths, her head down while she panted in agony. The healing was already starting, tiny sparks of fire arcing through the warm stickiness of blood. Elena brought her head all the way back, gasping, looking at the ceiling and letting the tears of pain come, then she faced Pamela again.

Hunger and hatred gleamed in the Watcher's eyes as she stared at the healing leg in revolted fascination. She stepped forward and pressed the gun barrel against Elena's temple, pushing hard. "Did you enjoy it?" Pamela asked, her voice low and husky. "Did you get off watching him in pain? Is that what you like to do for fun?"

"No," Elena gritted out, her neck bent to one side, the still-hot metal burning a circle on her temple next to her hair.

"Liar!"

"No," Elena said again, carefully and deliberately. "I still haven't lied to you, Pamela. You were right, I am a cold-blooded, murdering bitch." This time when Elena said it, she believed it. She had no excuses or justifications for what she'd done. None. Nada. She was damned.

"But I didn't enjoy it," Elena explained, because Pamela had asked and Elena owed her the truth. "I never enjoyed it. But that doesn't matter - not to them. And not to me, not anymore, not since you made me see. Alive or dead, I am damned. Even if I get away from you, I'll never get away from who - from what - I am.

"But you don't have to do this," Elena said, trying desperately to convince her. "I'm tied up, helpless. Do you really think you can you shoot me and then chop off my head? It's not easy, you know, Pamela. You'll have to pick up my dead body and arrange it so you can get to my neck. Maybe lay it on a chair, then swing the blade hard enough to cut through my spine, maybe hack at my neck a couple of times to get through the bones. And the blood ... it shoots out away from the body, a fountain of blood everywhere, on the floor, in my hair, spattered on your clothes ... on your hands."

Pamela shuddered and lowered the gun, the sword dangling from her other hand. "Stop it," she whispered, her face pale.

Elena didn't stop. "You'll see my head rolling on the floor, maybe bouncing a few times, maybe even landing face up and staring at you. You'll have to clean up, dispose of me, pick up my body and my head, drag them away. And you will never forget *any* of it." Elena swallowed hard. "But you can still walk away," Elena repeated. "You can still be free, Pamela Johnson."

"I'll never be free of you," Pamela Johnson said viciously. "No matter what I do. But if I am going to hell, I want you to get there first."

Pamela raised the gun and fired, and Elena saw blinding stars and splintered lightning, then only darkness, once again.

* * *

**Concluded in Part 3**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Invisible Darkness: Part 3**_

* * *

Elena came back to life with a shudder and a gasp. _ /I'm getting really tired of this./ _ And where was she this time? Still in the old shed, but untied now, lying with her head and torso on a pile of wooden pallets, to elevate her neck off the floor. An impromptu chopping block, to make that killing stroke just a little easier.

Her sword lay on the floor a few paces away, pointing at her head.

For long moments she lay on the pallets in a pool of her own, sticky, mostly-dried blood, slowly healing, shaking with agony and with a coldness that came from within. It was all within her, the coldness, the darkness, the evil.

She wondered if Pamela Johnson was still around, watching her. But Elena doubted it, or she wouldn't still be on the floor. Pamela was gone, and Elena wondered why she'd been spared. Maybe, when it came right down to it, Pamela had not been able to actually cut off someone's head. Maybe Pamela was afraid of having even worse nightmares than she had now. Was it weakness or cowardice on Pamela's part? Or was it strength? Or mercy? Elena had no idea, and as she lay there, thinking, she wondered if Pamela had really done her a favor.

Elena lifted her head centimeter by centimeter and looked around the empty room. She had been right - no Pamela. The metal scaffolding where Pamela had tied her was opposite the door, and Elena's coat lying in a heap in the corner. The floor was dirty and cold, and her elbow still throbbed -

Finally Elena sat up slowly, then grabbed her wrist and yanked, wrenching the elbow back into its socket. The pain shot through her, and this time she welcomed it. She was a damned cold-hearted fucking murdering bitch, and pain was what she deserved.

It took Elena long minutes to gather enough strength - or will - to get to her feet, and it occurred to her how vulnerable she would be to another Immortal right now. But no other Immortal would show up, she knew.

_/It wouldn't be that easy, and I won't get that lucky./_

She stumbled toward the open doorway, wondering if she had the guts to face the day. To face herself. Standing in the threshold, leaning heavily against the doorframe, breathing hard and shuddering, she looked out into a nearly black misty world that showed occasional glimpses of wind-twisted trees on the hillsides and spiked artichoke leaves in the field below. The eastern hills glowed faintly around the edges. The night was almost over.

But the darkness had just begun. Pamela had been right. She was right.

Elena stood there for a long time, staring into the cold and swirling fog. But she couldn't stay in this shed forever, and she couldn't leave without her sword. Even now, even knowing what she was, she couldn't walk away from her sword. She shrugged into her coat and made her way over to the sword, then fell heavily to her knees, staring at the weapon.

_/Oh, God. My God. What the hell did I do, for eighteen months, eighteen months of killing and getting drunk and killing again. Killing innocent people. Killing mortals I _knew_ were innocent. For what!/_

Elena knelt there, swaying. She had no strength left-not even to cry, or to pray. Holy Ground, she needed Holy Ground. She needed to pray, to confess. Elena forced herself upright and picked up her sword, the handle cold in her hand, then stumbled outside to get her bearings. The dark line of trees along the dry bed of the Carmel River meandered in the distance before her; she wasn't that far from the monastery. Pamela had probably shoved her in a car trunk and driven around for a while, looking for a remote place to kill her.

Elena walked on the soft dark earth of the artichoke field until she reached the highway, then plodded south, just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, refusing to allow herself to think. Finally, through the dark branches of a grove of cypress trees, she caught a glimpse of the square bell tower of the church. Elena turned to walk up the driveway of the convent, and the gravel crunched loud under her shoes as she climbed the hill.

She approached the cream-colored adobe building slowly, then mounted the stone stairs that led to the door. It looked so much like the churches she'd gone to as a child, with its red tile roof and small stained glass windows, the double curve of the arches that spoke of the Moors and of Spain. Elena had gone to church every morning with her aya, and every Sunday with her father, trying - and failing miserably - to be quiet and not to fidget while the priest chanted the mass and said the prayers.

But this church was locked, its heavy wooden doors closed against her. She didn't deserve the consolation of asking God to help her. Dazed, she looked around her. The courtyard was quiet and still. The Carmelite sisters were hidden behind their cloister walls. Elena shivered in the shadows of the doorway, then turned and walked back down the stairs, knowing one more place she could try. The grotto in the cypress grove - she could pray to the Holy Mother there.

The trees wove a roof of branches overhead, and the curving path was thick and soft with faded needles, an earth-brown walkway in the dim and greenish light. Elena paused at the entrance to the grotto, a tiny chapel with tree trunks instead of stone columns and green leaves instead of a red-tiled roof, a living cave. Elena laid her sword carefully at the base of a tree. She couldn't take it in here.

A wooden bench faced the small stone statue of Madonna and child, but Elena ignored it and went straight to her knees, bowing her head in prayer and taking refuge in long-familiar words. _"Hail Mary ... Dios te salve Maria, llena eres de gracia, el Senor es contigo."_

But the Lord was not with Elena. The Hunters had been right after all:_ /"You're an unnatural monster who doesn't deserve to live."/_

Elena shook her head and kept going, ignoring the memories in her mind. _"Bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres."_

Some women were blessed, not her. Elena had not lied to Pamela, and Pamela had spoken only the truth in return:_ /"You are a damned cold-hearted murdering bitch, Elena Duran."/_ A damned cold-hearted murdering bitch in thought, in word, and in deed.

_"Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesus,"_ Elena continued desperately, staring at the child cradled in its mother's arms, as she had once cradled the infant Carmela close against her heart. And just what would Carmela think of her now, a murderer of innocents, of unborn children, a monster with blood on her hands?

_"Santa Maria, Madre de Dios,"_ Elena choked out, then abandoned the prayer for a simple mantra of guilt and pain, pressing her forehead against the ground._ "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa…"_

Voices sounded in her head, lapping and overlapping like waves upon the shore, dragging at her, pulling her down. "_I swear to God, please don't do this anymore! /!No me haga eso mas, por favor, senorita! Please, please stop! I'll tell you everything! Please, for the love of God, stop, I beg you!"_

But she hadn't stopped, she hadn't listened, no matter what they'd said or done. She had tortured twelve people, and then she had killed them all.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she whispered, but now her own voice crashed down upon her, and she whimpered in remembered fear. "_!No, Bethel, por el amor de Dios, no! _ I'll do anything, anything! Please stop!"

But Bethel hadn't stopped, he hadn't listened, no matter what she'd said or done. He had tortured her and he had killed her, over and over again. Elena froze, immobilized by that single searing thought: She deserved everything Bethel had done to her, because she had done the same.

No wonder the church had been closed to her. She wasn't fit to set foot inside. She wasn't fit to live. She was damned. She was one of the walking undead, a vampire who killed in the darkness and sucked out people's life-blood. Elena shuddered and backed out of the grotto, cringing as she scuttled away.

She stopped at the edge of the grove and stared unseeing into the glowing haze of white fog, stood there shattered into pieces by another blinding thought, the logical conclusion: She was just like Bethel, that sadistic evil monster. She was just like him.

The same.

_/"You belong to me, body and soul."/_

Oh God, no. Not that. No.

Yes.

He was right. Bethel had been right about her. She was a worthless, murdering bitch. She was exactly the same as Bethel, and the Watchers had hated and feared her, just as she had hated and feared him. Just the same. The same helplessness, the same unheard pleas for mercy, the same screams of terror and pain. The same.

A bird was singing somewhere nearby, welcoming the dawn. Elena fell to the ground and vomited onto the sandy soil, retching up bile and blood, choking on dark and bloody fear, an unceasing vomiting of self-hatred and despair.

Water, she needed water. She needed to get clean. Elena fled down the hill and across the hard black road, then on to the scrub-covered dunes. Branches and brambles caught at her clothing, bony fingers clutching at her soul. Elena pushed her way through, sobbing and panting, finally reaching the storm-scoured beach, finally reaching a place where she could run. Small broken balloons of brown kelp squeaked underfoot, and tiny black flies rose in clouds around her ankles. Elena kept running, the sand giving way to pebbles and narrow bands of tide-washed debris, then back to sand, and then at last to surf and foam, water surging round a great black rock and spitting high into the air.

The water was freezing, stinging her with hard-flung lashes of spray. Elena licked the salt-water when it ran down her face, the warmth of her tears mixed with cold ocean droplets. The waves tumbled over her, pushed her and dragged at her, pulled her deeper as she scrubbed at her face and her arms and her hands over and over again.

_/"You are a cold-hearted, murdering bitch, Elena Duran. You're not even human."/_

Elena collapsed to her knees, weeping soundlessly as she remembered those words. Even the ocean couldn't wash away all the blood from her hands, and nothing could ever clean her soul. She had been so glad she hadn't had to kill Bethel, didn't have his consciousness as a part of hers - but it didn't matter. She _was_ Bethel, and Bethel was her. She was damned.

The next wave swept over her completely, lifted her up and carried her out to sea, tumbling her endlessly, in a world of no direction and no end. Elena floated unresisting, wanting to die, but she couldn't help but gasp for air as she was pummeled and beaten against the rocks by the waves. And she was condemned to live - that was her punishment. The ocean vomited her back onto the shore, and Elena was left sprawling face-down in the sand. Her arms spread wide and her fingers clutched feebly at the sand, as her broken body twitched with cold and pain, crucified on the cross she'd built with her own bloody hands.

_"Mea culpa,"_ she whispered, wishing she'd listened more carefully when her father, Don Alvaro, had made her go to the Catholic masses. Ah, but this one she knew: "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I am a sinner. I am-"

But Elena couldn't even ask for forgiveness, not any more, not after she what had done. One thing only was left to her, a plea to be remembered in prayer. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me, a sinner, now and at the hour of my death, for I am damned."

_/?Dios mio, what have I done?/_

* * *

Elena didn't move when she felt the presence of an Immortal, didn't even lift her head from the sand. She deserved to die; she might as well make it easy for whoever had happened on by. Footsteps scuffed through the sand and stopped about four paces away. "Must have been one hell of a party," came the unamused and sarcastic observation, and Elena slumped even deeper into the sand in despair as she recognized that distinctive rough-edged voice. Connor MacLeod wouldn't kill her, at least not like this, nor right now.

Shit.

After a minute, Connor came closer, then reached down to grab her arm and haul her to her feet. She swayed, her legs so rubbery he was practically holding her upright. She blinked with the light, the fog all aglow around them, the sun a bright spot above the hills. "Where's your sword?" Connor asked after another minute, and Elena tried to remember. "Where?" Connor repeated, pulling her closer.

"In the grove of trees at the monastery, near the statue," Elena answered finally, staring at the ground.

Connor didn't answer, just pulled her along beside him as she trudged once again through the sand, trembling with cold the whole time. In the church parking lot, he opened his car door and gave her a gentle shove inside. She sat there, dimly conscious of the softness of the blue velour beneath her sand-encrusted hands. The other car door opened then slammed, and Connor dropped her sword onto her lap. Elena started to shudder, great shivers running up and down her body. Connor started the motor and turned the heat to full, then pulled out his cell phone and started to dial.

"No," Elena said immediately, recognizing those first few digits.

Connor paused, one hand in the air. "Duncan's worried," he explained with elaborate patience.

"Duncan shouldn't worry about me," she said. She wasn't worth it. And she didn't want to talk to him.

Connor nodded. "That's what I told him - that you always land on your feet, like a damn cat." Before Elena could react to that left-handed vote of confidence from the elder Highlander, he continued, "But Duncan doesn't think so. He dragged me out of bed to help look for you," and Elena winced, knowing that Connor wouldn't have taken kindly to that sort of interruption, not for her.

"He might be down to the Point Sur lighthouse by now," Connor continued. "Worrying all the way."

"I'll call him," Elena promised. "As soon as I get home."

"Now," Connor ordered, handing her the cell phone. "He's waited long enough." When she hesitated, Connor muttered an oath and got out of his car, slamming the door behind him, but giving her the privacy she needed.

Elena kept the phone call short and simple: Yes, I'm alive. Yes, it was a challenge. I'm sorry to have worried you.

"I'll be right there," Duncan promised.

"No hurry," she told him, not ready to face him. "Be careful driving on this road. They drive like maniacs." She almost kept the trembling out of her voice. Almost.

"I'm always careful," he said with a smile in his voice, and added more softly, "I love you, _querida._"

She didn't deserve his love. Static crackled on the line, breaking the connection, and Elena slowly turned off the phone. Connor immediately got in and put the car in gear. Neither of them spoke on the short ride back to her house.

"Where is everybody?" Elena asked in dismay when he turned onto the driveway, for no other cars were parked there. Duncan was still out driving, but had all the others left already? Abandoned her?

"Amanda and Richie took off for Santa Cruz right after you left last night," Connor answered as he turned off the car. "Something about riding every ride on the boardwalk before dawn. Methos stayed at the house this morning in case you came back, but we had to move his Corvette into the garage to get Duncan's car out."

Elena sagged in sudden relief, hardly noticing Connor as he walked around the car to open her door. Methos was still here, _gracias a Dios!_ She needed someone old and wise, someone to talk to, someone who could counsel her. That would help. Elena managed a small smile for Connor as she maneuvered herself out of the car, and he half-smiled back, then escorted her all the way to the portico and even opened the front door. He nodded once and headed for the wooden stairs that led down to the tiny guest cottage nestled among the trees. No doubt the buxom Shannon was waiting for him in bed.

Elena twirled in the doorway and called out his name, so low she wasn't sure he'd heard. But he turned back to her - impatient, she could tell. "Thanks for helping me," she said. "Again." Connor had helped her get away from Bethel, ironically enough. He had even killed Bethel on her behalf. She hadn't deserved that either, but she was grateful, and Connor deserved to know that, right now, right away, no games between them.

Brows arched slightly, he nodded in response, scrutinizing her, grey eyes on grey, until she lowered her gaze, unable to meet his. Then he did something unexpected - he came close and clasped her upper arm, squeezing softly.

Elena's eyes filled suddenly at the kindness and sympathy in that small gesture, but he had already turned and was jogging away, and she was left alone. She didn't have much time; Duncan would be back soon, and she needed to talk to Methos. She strode past the fencing studio, through the kitchen/dining area to reach the glass-and-stone living room, a high-ceilinged space with the potential of a magnificent view of the Pacific. This morning, the huge window revealed only a muffling shroud of grey fog.

Methos was sprawled on the easy chair in front of the fireplace, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a paperback in the other. His eyebrows lifted in amusement. "Well, look what the cat dragged in."

Elena supposed she looked like hell; she belonged there anyway. Her chest still hurt from when she'd been repeatedly shot, her stomach from vomiting, her muscles and bones from being pummeled by the unforgiving Pacific. Sand had gotten everywhere, even inside her eyepatch, scratching and chafing her, and she hadn't even been able to wipe her tears for fear of getting sand in her one good eye. She was still freezing cold, and she felt exhausted and sick. Her seaweed covered-hair hung down in a mess, and her coat clung to her. She stank of fish. Her boots would have to be thrown away, and she squished and left little piles of sand on the carpeting as she walked.

But she didn't give a damn about appearances right now. Elena walked right up to his chair and in a trembling but purposeful voice, she said, "Someone told me last night that I'm a black-hearted, cold-blooded, murderous bitch. Damned."

Methos started laughing. "We all know that about you, Elena."

His words, and especially his laughter, hit her like a hammer on glass. She could actually feel herself shatter, painfully, into a million pieces. She looked straight at him, unable to even hide how she felt.

Methos sobered, his eyes narrowing in realization, and he set down his coffee and his book on the end table as he stood. "Except you," he said softly. "You didn't know it."

"You'd know all about it," Elena sniped, wanting him to hurt just as much as she did. "You know exactly how it feels, looking down from your pale horse."

Methos' eyes narrowed even more, but before he could retort she came closer to him still, and put the palm of her left hand on his chest. The backs of his calves were against the easy chair - not a good position for him, she knew. He grabbed her hands in a protective gesture, but she wasn't trying to attack him. She needed to know. "How - how do you live with it?" she whispered urgently, not meaning it as an insult or a put-down, but as a request for information, even a plea for help.

Methos nodded slowly, and she could tell he understood. She needed to know, and if anyone could tell her, he could.

Death could.

He moved forward, pushing her back, then squeezed her hands hard enough to cause her pain. The pain felt good. Methos started to speak, stopped, then shrugged and said, "You live through one day. When that day is over, you live through the next day, until-"

"Until you can forget it?" she asked, having no real hope of that.

"Not even close," he said grimly. "Not even after thousands of years. Never. You never, ever forget. You live until you can accept it. Until you can accept yourself."

She shook her head. "I don't accept it. I can't accept it. And I don't much like myself."

He shrugged again and smiled slightly. "There's a solution for that, too, although it comes with a price." Still holding onto her hands, he gave her the answer. "Change, _nina._"

She nodded. Of course, it made sense. It was logical, even desirable. But changing who she was ... He made it seem so easy, like Albert Einstein made science seem easy, like Duncan made swordplay look easy.

Nothing easy about it.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, then another, trying to steady herself. First, recognize the problem. _ /I've done that part,/_ Elena thought with grim and certain humor. _/I'm fucked. I'm damned./ _ That part wasn't hard at all.

Second, work towards the solution: change. Elena snorted in despair. Oh, sure, if she could can remake herself in some fundamental way. She couldn't do this!

_/All right, all right,/_ she thought, gripping his hands tightly. _ /Maybe I can./_

_/No, I can't!/_ She was too close to him; she couldn't breathe. His touch was stifling her, his closeness. Elena pulled her hands from his and moved away. She went to the window, staring down at the grey fog writhing among the gnarled branches of trees on the cliff below.

Bethel had been right, and Pamela had been right, too. Connor would agree, Elena knew, and Methos had confirmed it. Everybody knew it. She was a damned cold-blooded fucking murderer, and she would never, could never change.

"Coffee?" Methos asked, and she nodded, still shivering. Methos went to the kitchen, and she went to sit cross-legged in front of the fire, letting the warmth soak into her. A log popped, and tiny red-gold ashes flew up the chimney, just like her image of herself had been burned away, leaving only dark ashes behind.

After a moment, he came back and gracefully sank to the floor next to her, handing her a cup of coffee, with plenty of milk and sugar, hot enough to sting her still-frozen hands. Then he reached for his coffee and sat next to her silently, sipping from his own mug. She held the cup tightly, trying not to spill it with her trembling shivers, but she didn't drink. "_No somos nada,_" she said.

"You think so?" he asked her. "That we're nothing?" He shrugged, took a swallow of his coffee, then turned to face her. "We're all still damn careful to stay alive, aren't we?"

"Death is change, and we're afraid of change. I'm afraid."

"I know. Fear can be a semi-permanent condition, overwhelming you, sapping all your strength, all your will. You have to get past the fear, Elena."

She smiled grimly. "No rah, rah speech? No 'You can do it, Elena!'?" she said sarcastically. He said nothing, and she sighed. "_Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose,_" she whispered.

"True," he agreed. "But that doesn't refer to people. Or it doesn't have to. People can change. Believe me, I know."

She shook her head. "Even if I can-"

"It doesn't change what you've done. Of course not," he murmured, and as she stared into the fire, Elena could feel his bright inquisitive gaze slicing into that layer of silence she had wrapped herself in. But she needed to talk, didn't she? Wasn't that why she was here? Maybe she could just get up and leave, get away from him before he had a chance to hit her with one of his well-aimed barbs ...

"Who?" Methos asked, and that avenue of escape disappeared.

The words weren't easy, but she forced herself to speak. "The wife of a Watcher I killed. Tortured actually. Then murdered."

"Ah-ha," Methos said, nodding. "I wondered when that would come round and bite you on the ass," he said pleasantly, and she wanted to slap him, but she didn't dare, and she didn't have the right.

He continued in that same cheery, professorial tone, "Socrates really did say that a life not examined is not worth living. And he was right. He was usually right," Methos admitted, but more to himself than to her. "So now you're reliving all the things you've done wrong. Not just this," he said, making an encompassing gesture with his left hand.

"Yes," she whispered. It was a hell of a long list.

"And is there anything you can do to make things better?" Methos asked, sounding like the host of a game show.

"No," she said bleakly.

"I'm not so sure. You murdered a few Watchers. Do you think going to their families now, and confessing, talking to this widow again, saying you're sorry, will-"

"No!" she exclaimed, horrified, shocked into looking at him, remembering Pamela's burning hatred, her righteous contempt, her misery and loneliness, imagining what the family members of all the other murdered Watchers would have to say to her, and how they would feel. "Nothing."

"Good," Methos said, the grimness of his face belying his earlier words. "Then that's done,"

"It's done?" she asked, looking at him quizzically, a little desperately. "That's it?"

"That's it," he answered.

Elena closed her eye, opened it again. "There's nothing I can do," she said, resigned.

"No."

No. She looked toward the window again. The fog lay in tattered remnants around the tree tops, and the grey was lightening to white. The wind must be picking up. "I just have to live with the guilt," she said softly. And the self-loathing. And the utter certain knowledge that she was damned.

"Yes."

"I'm damned." Elena said it aloud this time, needing a witness even as she closed her own eye and tried not to see.

"That depends," Methos said. "Your particular deity is a forgiving one, isn't He?"

She shook her head, but admitted, "Yes, He is. But ..."

"It wasn't that long ago," he suggested. "Maybe you can make things better for the survivors."

"How? You mean money?" she asked, disgusted. "Money won't-"

"No, it won't," he interrupted. "I said make things better, not fix anything. You can't bring back the dead, the ones you tortured and murdered," he said harshly.

She winced, nodding.

Then he added in a quiet voice, "Dawson might be able to help you find out about these families."

_/Going to Joe Dawson! I think I'm going to be sick! I tried to torture and murder him, too. I don't think Dawson has ever forgiven me, either. Nor would he. Nor should he./_ But she couldn't think of herself, and Methos was right. He usually was, just like Socrates. If she could do something to help, it would be worth it. It could make things better, whether it made her feel better or not.

"Think of it as penance," Methos suggested. "Or payment. And consider yourself blessed that you can still make _some_ amends, to someone," he said, significantly. "As for the rest, you just have to learn to live with it. And try not to let it happen again. You have to make yourself a different person."

"Like you did?"

She watched him draw one deep breath, all he would allow himself. "Yes," he answered.

She shuddered, suddenly wanting wine instead of coffee. No, not wine. Scotch. _/I think I'll get really drunk on Scotch. Why the hell not? That sure hasn't changed. But first .../_ She looked over at this old man who, she believed, cared about her - if only because he was the same as she was - a fucking, cold-blooded murderer. He was giving her what she'd hoped for, a solution, a way out of damnation. But she hadn't told him everything.

Elena looked up at the picture over the fireplace, a drawing of the magnificent stallion, El Negro, running wild and free across the pampa. Another Immortal, Cassandra, had drawn that for Elena a dozen years ago, a symbol of freedom for both of them: freedom from the horrors of their pasts, and the freedom to choose to move on. But Elena now recognized that she had never gotten free of Bethel, never _would_ be free of Bethel.

No, dammit. That wasn't true, either. It wasn't Bethel; it was herself. "I'm just like Bethel," she confessed to Methos, while she painstakingly scraped away some of the sand clinging to her clothes. "Just like him. I did exactly what he did."

Methos sighed through a grim chuckle, then stretched out his long legs and leaned against the couch. "Now there's a philosophical question Socrates would have grilled you on. Are we who we are, or are we what we do? Mother Teresa? Hitler? Who were they, really?" He paused to let her consider, then continued, "I rather fancy the first choice myself, because actions can be coerced, unwilling, impulsive, mistaken, even insane. But we can't get away from _who_ we are - as you found out tonight." He turned to face her, all traces of humor gone now. "But you're not just like Bethel, Elena. He enjoyed what he did."

_/And so did you,/ _Elena thought, staring in fascination into his ancient eyes, seeing there, in spite of his bland expression, the savage butcher this man had been. Elena shuddered. Yes, Methos had enjoyed it. Maybe a part of him still did. No wonder Cassandra said she couldn't bring herself to trust him.

"You never enjoyed it," Methos continued in a flat, even voice. "That's your saving grace, _nina_, your lifeline." Earnestly, he urged her, "Take it, hang onto it."

Elena swallowed, grateful, and clung to that slim lifeline Methos had give her, even at his own expense. She wasn't exactly like Bethel. And she wasn't like Death, either. She never wanted to do that again, please God, never again!

She finished her coffee slowly, then put the cup down on the hearth and stood. Methos stood with her. "One day at a time," she said, putting on a brave front, and he nodded. "Maybe I can do that," she murmured.

"Now don't go getting too uppity," he chided her, his eyes sparkling, his usual humor back once again.

"Thanks for your help. Again," she said to Methos, just as she had to Connor. Then, hoping to give him a lifeline, she added, "And Bethel would never have changed. He didn't want to. That's what makes you different, _viejo_."

"Does it?" he countered, suddenly vicious in his sarcasm, that thin veneer of humor cracking open. "Bethel was ... what? Less than a hundred years old? How can you know what he would have become? And how do you know," he asked, low and savage, stepping closer and gripping her wrists in a quick and unbreakable hold, "that I _wanted_ to change?"

Elena licked suddenly dry lips, her earlier fascination congealing into fear, because Death was only a heartbeat away. Earlier, on the beach, she'd wanted to die. But now she wanted to live. "Methos-"

"Don't judge, Elena," he commanded harshly. "And don't _ever_ presume to know the future of another person's soul." They stared at each other, barely breathing, until he blinked a little and the Horseman disappeared. Methos let go of her wrists and stepped back, then delivered a final stinging blow. "You have enough to worry about with your own."

Elena opened her mouth to reply, but Methos had already started to walk away. She stood for a minute, considering. She was judging Bethel, wasn't she? Maybe, given a chance, Bethel would have turned out differently. But during most of his time on this earth, Claude Bethel had been a cruel, sadistic son of a bitch, and Connor had chopped off Bethel's options when he'd chopped off Bethel's head. And Elena didn't have any problem with that at all. She was glad the bastard was dead. Damn glad.

But Methos ... whatever the reason-time, opportunity, temperament-he wasn't a cruel, sadistic son of a bitch, not anymore. She took a deep breath and followed Methos into the kitchen. "But you _did_ change," she persisted. "And that's your saving grace."

"Yeah," he agreed sourly, lifting his coffee mug to her in an ironic toast. "My only one."

"Not your only one," Elena contradicted, shaking her head. "You're funny, and you have a nice ass."

His eyes narrowed. "Don't forget charming and kind," he said sarcastically.

"You've been kind to me," she whispered.

His mouth twisted in a wry approximation of a smile, and his tone remained acid. "Because we're kindred spirits."

"Because you changed. It's enough," she insisted, but his expression remained the same, so she added softly, "It's enough for me," and she leaned forward, put her hand on his chest again, and kissed him on the cheek.

Another moment of locked gazes and suspended breathing, then he smiled slightly, a genuine smile, and murmured, "Nice to know I pass muster."

"Now don't go getting too uppity," she chided, and Methos laughed aloud, and even Elena managed a chuckle. Then she said briskly, moving away from him, "I'm going to get cleaned up."

She stepped outside, crossing the courtyard to get to her bedroom, thinking, _/One thing at a time, one day at a time./_ For the rest of her life. She paused with her hand on the handle of the French doors to look over her right shoulder at the sea. The sunshine had finally broken through the fog, and she could see a tiny piece of the sky, looking a perfect blue. Elena took a deep, calming breath. Soon the fog would lift, and the sky would turn all blue, one little piece at a time.

* * *

**THE END**

* * *

Elena and Methos also appear in Parda and Vi's story "Hope Triumphant II: Sister" (2nd chapter)

**AUTHORS' NOTES**

**Many Thanks to:**

Robin, Mikal, and Bridget, who convinced us to write the story.  
Selena and Teresa, who walked with us through motivation and plot.  
MacNair and Harlene, who found those pesky missing words and brought up some more things that needed fixing.

**TRANSLATIONS (all Spanish unless noted otherwise)**

**pendejo **- insult to a man suggesting he has no balls  
**por el amor de Dios; os lo suplico; por favor; no me quemeis; lo que Ud. quiera; no me haga eso mas - **for the love of God; I beg you; please; don't burn me; whatever you want; don't do this to me again  
**matame de una vez** - kill me and be done  
**gracias a Dios; Madre de Dios; Dios mio** - thank God; Mother of God; my God  
**carajo** - double damn  
**estancia **- combination Argentina ranch/farm  
**perdoname** - forgive me  
**aya** - governess/companion/teacher to a wealthy child, usually a girl  
**Dios te salve Maria** - Holy Mary, full of grace  
**mea culpa** (Latin) - my fault (religious term)  
**querido/a** - beloved  
**nino/a** - boy/girl  
**no somos nada **- we are nothing  
**plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose** (French) - the more things change, the more they remain the same  
**viejo/a **- old man/woman

**The Hail Mary**

_Dios te salve Maria, llena eres de gracia, el Senor es contigo._

_Bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres, _  
_y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesus._

_Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, _  
_ruega por nosotros los pecadores, _  
_ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte._  
_Amen._

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women,  
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,  
prayer for us sinners  
now and at the hour of our death.  
Amen.


End file.
